Petshark: Talking Stick

Entries with the tag: washington capitals

The last goal in the last minute (2 seconds shy anyway) of the last game on the last day of the regular NHL season was scored by Dan Boyle for the Sharks. The Sharks’ pride prize was winning four in a row to end the season against their nearest divisional rivals. In their last 10 of the season, they were 7-3-0. The prize in standings was to play the St. Louis Blues instead of the Vancouver Canucks, to which I had to say “wait, wait… WAIT!”

From the regular season record, the Sharks would have been better off playing Vancouver in the first round. They only beat Vancouver once this season, but they didn’t beat St. Louis at all.

The Kings were 3-1 against the Blues but only 2-2 against the Canucks. To me, that suggests that the Kings had greater playoff incentive to win last night.

Dwayne Roloson will start for Tampa Bay tonight. Roloson has been having a very stinky season. I hate to see a goalie demoralized, especially a Libra. Writing that makes me worry if I just did something that will make him have the best game he’s had for a very long time. N’ah, I’m not really worried about that, what I was worried about was this road trip.

The length of it didn’t worry me. The Sharks haven’t played as well on the road this season, winning just over 62% at home but only 52% on the road. I didn’t count OT points but I guess I should. Do that and they have points in almost 69% of their home games, 68% on the road. A rule of thumb: don’t quote me on the math, I can’t count. Still, that didn’t worry me.

I was worried about the teams the Sharks are playing on this trip: Tampa Bay, Carolina, Minnesota, Columbus, throw Detroit and Nashville in to spice things up, and then remember Washington. I don’t know where to put Toronto on the worry scale, but I don’t think they tip the balance. On average, it’s not a daunting list. I looks like a gift horse. You don’t want to look it in the mouth because it would be rude but also the chances are good that the gift is older than it appears and it probably has crummy teeth. The gift horse will require extra care and feed and, in the end, will be more of a burden than a gift.

I didn’t expect rain last night. When I heard it coming down, I worried that I may have left things out. It was so unexpected that I couldn’t even remember what I needed to bring in, I didn’t know where to start battening down the hatches.

I think the Sharks had a similar experience in St. Louis. Maybe they didn’t skate long enough in the morning to figure the ice out. Maybe they didn’t practice hard enough to notice. The result was a bunch of guys who all looked like they were skating with broken feet on dull skate blades. Once they were in the game, it was too late to fix a problem of that magnitude. Despite all that horrible bad luck and maybe a touch of poor preparation, the Sharks did some admirable things in this game.

The Caps came to San Jose, gave Sharks fans a great game to watch, and brought Stephen Whyno from The Washington Times with them. Well, the Caps didn’t bring him but that’s why he was here. He promptly wrote a story about Douglas Murray and his approach to hitting, under new rules and old. Murray followed that up with a demonstration, during the game. For anyone bothered by said demonstration, there’s a Twitter hashtag: #blameWhyno.

A few good things happened this weekend in my hockey book, along with the above-mentioned marvelous Sharks demonstration of why the Capitals will never win here. Sharks have been winning. Flyers winning too. Leighton won in the AHL outdoor game. Yes, I’m an unabashed Leighton fan. I am strange, perhaps, or just loyal to a fault. Whatever. The Phantoms won 4-3 in OT, not a splendid win for a goalie, but hey, a win’s a win, most of the time.

88 hootin’ & hollerin’ over a goal. No need to point out who he scored on.

There’s 12 now. And 8, and 29.

Now Todd McLellan. Well that is interesting. Looks like a not very optional skate today.

I’m always happy to see more than ten players show up for optional skates, when they’re really truly optional. I don’t mean I think badly of the ones that aren’t there, I just mean the appearance of working away industriously is a good thing to see.